Airbourne Invasion of Baltimore

Joel O’keefe, Ryan O’keefe, David Roads and Justin Street of the Australian band Airbourne gave us THE rock event of the year on Friday November 2nd when the club Sonar and 98ROCK in Baltimore, Maryland hosted a Rock concert that we will certainly never forget!

From the very first chord of “Stand Up” Airbourne let us know that they were going to Rock all 250 of us like we’ve never been Rocked before. And that total Rock assault was such that we were all exhausted from pumping our fists and screaming at the top of our lungs…..when it was over. We fed off Airbourne’s energy as they obviously fed off of ours.

Airbourne lives for and loves to perform. That much is so completely obvious by their constant interaction with the crowd and each other. Rock is Airbourne’s chosen life, and we, the Rock fans of the world, are the beneficiaries!

Their show is non-stop motion! We took a ton of pictures, but they just wouldn’t stand still, so please don’t be too critical…..we did the best that we could.
Doesn’t matter though, because we were there…..we witnessed the greatest new rock show in the world….up close and in personal!

Their set list consisted of “Stand Up”, “Hell Fire”, “Fat City”, “What’s Eating You”, “Girls In Black”, “Too Much, Too Young, Too Fast”, “Heartbreaker”, “Cheap Wine & Cheaper Women”, “Runnin’ Wild” and “Black Jack”. Make no mistake here Rock fans…..every song that Airbourne plays is a great song! There are no duds or fillers here! That is not part of Airboune’s nature, they want every song to be perfect and they are!

And, when the set was over, and the crowd started chanting “Airbourne! Airbourne! Airbourne!”….they came back out and played “Ready to Rock” for a fitting encore.

For those of you who already own the non-USA release of Runnin’ Wild, you probably don’t recognize “Hell Fire” or “Ready To Rock”
“Hell Fire” is a new recording that will be put on the USA release coming out in January of 2008. It is replacing “Let’s Ride”.
And “Ready To Rock” if from the 2 year old Australia-only released cd by the same name. Only 1000 of those bad boys were ever pressed, and according to their manager, Gregg Donovan, it will NEVER be re-released! So if you own a copy of “Ready to Rock” hang on to it for dear life, and if you find a copy of “Ready to Rock” on Ebay….Good Luck Trying To Buy It! Talk about rare!

Airbourne is a “Must See” show for all rock fans. And if you are reading this and you are not a Rock fan….go to their show and you will instantly be an Airbourne fan, guaranteed!

This is Gregg…..he is one of the nicest and most dedicated folks that you will ever meet! He too loves what he does and it shows in his constant, infectious smile and enthusiasm while talking to everyone who wants to learn about Airbourne….(He is second from left)

Sadly, this is Airbourne’s last performance in the USA for this year. They are traveling back to Australia almost immediately.
But wait, this is also good news in that the reason they are going home is to pack! That’s right…..we said pack! They are moving to New Jersey in January! WOOOOOOOOOHOOOOOOOOO!!
And to all you folks in New Jersey……if you feel the ground start to shake some evening….not to worry….it is just the boys practicing for their next show…..Airbourne may just be coming to a town near YOU!

After the show, and after we got to talk to the band and get a few pictures, we met Ron Burman of Roadrunner Records. He is the man who signed Airbourne and will be responsible for their USA release. We got to listen as he and Gregg talked marketing tactics and strategies. And when they started talking about merchandise, Ron said that there should be an Airbourne tube-top produced for the women. After hearing that we’re guessing that Airbourne is going to be solely responsible for the elusive tube-top coming back into vogue! Every female on the planet is gonna want one!
(Sidebar – Ron is also responsible for signing Nickelback….How’s that for credentials?)

We’d like to thank Stash of 98Rock for coming to the show and introducing the band.

We did not get to meet or talk to Stash, but we did have the pleasure of tuning in to his afternoon show (once we got in broadcast range) and listened to the last part of his live interview with Joel and Ryan. The part that we listened to did not cover much of the music aspects of the band, but did touch on sports. Such as the sports of Australia and the USA and their differences. Football was the primary subject and their comments were hilarious. Aussie humor ROCKS!

Stash also were asked why they were moving to the USA, and that answer was one for the ages…..It turns out that 21 of the 25 most poisonous snakes in the world live in Australia. What better reason would they need to move? LOL

This was a great show and we were lucky enough to put ourselves in position to take some fair photos. This link will take you to the whole sequence from the show…